Thursday, April 12, 2012

Republicans' hollow claims of Democrat war on women

Any schoolyard child knows the rules: if someone accuses you of something, you throw it back into the other person's face...especially if the accusation rings true. That's what the Republican party is doing as they see the poll numbers and realize the damage their anti-women screeds and legislation are wreaking on their presidential prospects.

After their aggregious war on women (not only trying to ban birth control and calling women who use birth control "sluts" and worse, but also trying to force women to have transvaginal ultrasounds, restrict abortion, imprison doctors who perform abortions, ban Planned Parenthood, etc.), they now have the audacity to accuse the Democrats and President Obama of waging a war on women.

"If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars. It’s a fiction.”

"If you believe that all women are pro-abortion, maybe in your own world, maybe there’s a war on women...And the fact of the matter is, that the real war on women, the actual things that I think most women in this country are most concerned about, which is a good job, a good family, being able to live the American dream, provide for your kids and your family, that war on women is being perpetrated by President Barack Obama who has put our economy on the wrong track."

This is real audacity, because the poor economy is a direct result of eight years of Republican power. The economy was in a shambles when President Obama came into office, and it takes awhile to fix something so broken. And instead of focusing on creating jobs and writing legislation to actually help people, the Republicans are busy writing 90 separate anti-abortion bills across the country and refusing to support equal pay for equal work (ala Lily Ledbetter).

Mitt Romney is singing the same tune, claiming that 92 percent of the jobs lost have been women's jobs. Yet, the 92 percent comes from January 2009, before President Obama was even sworn in. In fact, 39.7 percent of the jobs lost since the beginning of the recession in 2007 were by women...so the 92 percent figure is a big, fat lie. Since taking office, he has been a staunch supporter of women and policies to help them and their families.

The reality is that the likes of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are most responsible for the Republican war on women. They have done far more than Romney to skew the party further to the right in the last year. Charles Blow writes on the New York Times blog about what "Rick Santorum has wrought":

"Santorum surged by dragging the debate so far to the right he couldn’t see the middle with a telescope. The base dropped all pretense of moderation or even modernity and followed Santorum down a slippery path that led to a political abyss of social regression...Instead of small government and fiscal conservatism, Santorum overwhelmingly promoted — and the public overwhelmingly focused on — his apparent obsession with sex and religion."

Now Romney has no choice but to pick up the women war where Santorum left off. He has to if he has any hope of winning far-right conservatives' support. Blow continues:

"The shift in the debate, which Santorum helped create, and his withering attacks on the front-runner forced Romney to move further right than was politically prudent...As a result, Romney is now weaker than any post-primary party nominee in recent political history."